Letter from the President - July 2013
Hello AUGI Member!
I find myself again writing the monthly letter while traveling away from my home in Tampa, Florida, USA.
This time, I am traveling to the Revit Technology Conference in Vancouver, Canada in mid-July. This will be my 5th RTC event and I'm looking forward to seeing many RTC/AUGI friends again! You should know that AUGI is a Gold Sponsor for RTC2013 and is also helping to share that knowledge base via the hosting of RTC class content within the AUGI Forums. Look for more information on that initiative in the near future.
So, what else is new? Plenty! As I mentioned last month, the AUGI Board conducted a mid-year meeting in person at the San Francisco office of Autodesk. Affectionally known as 'One Market,' this office also includes a public gallery of work from Autodesk users. There are many amazing products and designs in the gallery. If you are ever in downtown SF, I encourage you to stop by and visit!.
Elsewhere on the management front, I mentioned working with SmithBucklin, an association management company as AUGI manages the transition from former AUGI Executive Director Mark Kiker. SmithBucklin joined our meetings in SF and provided some key insight from an external perspective. Ultimately, we have opted to continue to develop and manage AUGI internally with assistance from specific individuals in-house. Perhaps in the future AUGI will look at external management again, but for the moment the Board felt our system is working well for all users.
Regarding the AUGI.com login project, it is nearly complete! It has been interesting to see our developer encounter the unique situations that caused our system to (temporarily) act badly during member login. The solution is in the final stages of testing on our server and should be up and running by this time next month!
Over on the AUGIWORLD magazine, we have a new content manager! Brian Chapman has taken over the responsibility for 3DS Max articles. We are very excited to have this product coverage in the magazine once again. If we are missing your favorite program in AUGIWORLD, please consider volunteering - it's how we grow!
Meanwhile the Salary Survey is underway again for 2013. Now is your chance to share a bit of insight into your career so that others can benefit from the greater collective of data. The final results will be shared in the September issue of AUGIWORLD. Remember: no personal information will be recorded or shared, so please take the survey yourself!
Over on HotNews, your monthly email newsletter, our distribution is now over 193,000 members per month! If you are not getting HotNews on the 3rd Thursday of every month, be sure to check your membership profile and subscriber to HotNews (and AUGIWORLD too!)
For those that enjoy giving back to your community, Michael Smith and Desiree Mackey have been working to define specific needs where volunteers can pitch in where they have time and interest. This effort is how we connected with Brian for 3ds Max Content Manager - and there are so many more opportunities available.
And speaking of volunteering, the Nominations and Elections committee is being chaired by R. Robert Bell (AUGI VP) this year and he will be looking out for a few others to help on his committee. After the committee is formed, it will begin seeking qualified candidates to nominate for the annual Board of Directors election. This year, we have 3 open seats (out of 9)! Please review the bylaws to see if you meet the qualifications to help guide the organization as member of the Board.
And with that, I'm off. See you in the forums!
- David