Autodesk User Group International

Local Chapter: Portland Revit User Group
Meetings: Third Wednesday of every month
Newsletter: None
Website: http://chapters.augi.com/abug/portland/

Board:
Gordon Price - President
Crawford Smith - Vice President
Celeste Warren - Secretary
Devon Lumbard - Treasurer
Kevin Janik - Editor
Hakan Cete - Membership
Eric Miller - Education

Sponsors:
PPI Group
Ideate Inc.
IMAGINiT Technologies

Local Flavor: How long has your Local Chapter been active?

Price: The March 2008 meeting will be our third anniversary.

Local Flavor: How many members does your Local Chapter have and how many attend regularly?

Cete: We have 225 registered members, mostly from architectural firms, with some members from construction and engineering firms. Our average for the past 13 months has been 43 people.

Local Flavor: What has been your largest attendance?

Cete: 77 people at our March 2007 meeting.

Local Flavor: What products do your members use?

Janik: Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, and Revit MEP.

Local Flavor: What makes your Local Chapter successful and keeps people returning to the meetings?

Lumbard: We work to maximize our members' experience. We are able to offer free lunch to our attendees and we do not charge any membership fees or dues. Why wouldn't people want to attend?

Price: Revit is just so new, people realize they need to share ideas and learn together. Being Revit-focused just immediately creates community.

Local Flavor: What are some of the best topics/tutorials discussed at your meetings? How do you keep producing exciting and interesting professional development topics?

Lumbard: We have received the most positive feedback when we focus on exploring specific features of Revit. One of the common themes we try to incorporate into our meetings is a "Tips and Tricks" presentation where useful Revit information is discussed.

Local Flavor: Many Local Chapters are working on community projects with area schools and colleges. Will your group be participating in such a project?

Janik: We are working with schools in the area providing them information about the group and encouraging their students to attend as well as providing teacher contacts from our group and board for Revit classes. Our goal is to encourage Revit usage throughout the area and provide opportunities for students to connect and network with professionals through our meetings.

Local Flavor: Your website is very good and definitely reflects "PRUG." What has been your view on the importance of the website?

Smith: We think that it's important to have a strong online presence in order to attract and retain members, as well as providing information to those members.

Local Flavor: What is your favorite meeting memory?

Smith: We had a very good presentation that showed how a local firm was successfully combining rendered output from Revit with hand-drawn renderings. Some of the guests from my firm (whom I had dragged along to the meeting) really perked up when they saw that presentation, and became enthusiastic Revit supporters. It really helped spread the word in my firm on the power and versatility of Revit.

Price: The completely packed, standing-room-only meeting in March of last year. And being able to give away a free pass to AU 2007.

Local Flavor: Is your chapter doing anything new for 2008?

Smith: We are trying to expand the group's membership, have a larger and more accessible online presence, and establish a meeting schedule and location that will make it easier for people to attend.

Local Flavor: Your group works with three resellers as sponsors, yet PRUG maintains the group. How is that working? How is that benefitting the user group members?

Lumbard: We believe that receiving support from the local resellers while maintaining a separate board has been very successful. It allows us the opportunity to concentrate on the purpose of our group: to discuss BIM technologies and Revit, while also highlighting the three resellers that can provide more in-depth training.

Local Flavor: Your board of directors seems to be effective. What do you think makes your board so dedicated and such a strong group?

Lumbard: We are all passionate about Revit and BIM technology in general. This provides us with a common thread that keeps the group together. As for our effectiveness-success is an incidental result of pursuing our passions.

Local Flavor: Did anyone from your group attend the Local Chapter Leadership Conference at Autodesk University? If so, what was their favorite part and what information or tidbit did they bring back to the board/group?

Price: Eric Miller, Celeste Warren, and I attended. I think my favorite part was realizing that we really were doing pretty darn well. And what I brought back was the need for some strategic planning, especially given how large we are getting.