Contacting the Dark Matter in the Solid Edge Universe
I’ve written a similar blog post about other software, but it seems that there are some users of any particular software who are very hard to find. Whether they are shy, reclusive, disengaged, just observing or really just don’t care is hard to tell. These days a lot of us communicate with on-line tools, and it’s hard to remember that not everyone likes to do that. Even someone like me uses blogs and flirts with Twitter, but doesn’t use Facebook much at all.
I found this in running a lot of face-to-face user groups as well, that some people will just never respond to a user group invitation. So it’s not just about a fear of technology. It might be that some people just don’t want to extend work past 5:00. Personally, I find it hard to imagine working a job that I really want to leave behind me every day. I can’t imagine working a job I don’t love.
For those people who don’t want to communicate via the internet about work tools, or don’t want to go to meetings outside of work, how do we reach these folks? Or maybe I need to ask can we reach these folks? It’s easy to just assume that everyone is as enthusiastic about tools, work, stuff, life, etc as I am, but maybe that’s just not true.
Aside from hitching a ride with a reseller to go in and do a physical on-site visit with customers, how would you go about contacting
people who just may not be interested in participating in either on-line or face-to-face events? Even if you promise them they will learn something that will make their work easier?
What am I missing here?
SE also needs to look at the front end of metalsoft – amada currently utilizes SW to unfold their sheet metal models…. HUGE opportunityfor SolidEdge to replace SW at metalsoft – amada.. worldwide
OK Kim, thinking about your comment for input on what SE can do to reach out to customers.
When I was looking into CAM programs that might work well with SE I went to a Surfcam V6 demo day and also got a 30 day trial of Mastercam. Spaceclaim was there at the Surfcam demo day to tout their software. Now not only were they there but these guys were just blown away with the idea of Direct Editing. Now when I mentioned SE to some of the Surfcam guys they were oblivious to it and completely unaware that SE was a direct editing program. Reason is that SE does stupid things like Local Motors and Spaceclaim does smart things like put their product as a problem solver in front of EXISTING professional users who need this type of thing whether they knew it or not. People who have motivation to be serious customers in other words.
I have since my demo of Mastercam had a number of conversations with they guy who set it up because he is interested in my take on things in the CADCAM world. He just came back from some sort of Mastercam event on the West coast. His comments were that it appeared I was right about the coming demise of SW and the rise of direct editing programs. However the program he mentioned as being put to use by Mastercam customers out there was Spaceclaim. That CAD company that makes a point of focused pursuit of customers rather than some dumb amorphous program that appeals to who knows what. An old sales adage is that your best source of new quick increases in sales states that your existing customers are the easiest sales because they already trust you and look with favor upon your products. So here now is Mastercam and Surfcam pushing Spaceclaim because Spaceclaim is making an effort to be there. SE probably does not stand much of a chance here with the largest single seat count CAM product in the world, Mastercam, because Spaceclaim is there first and heavily promoted and aggressively put in front of potential users. As far as these guys go SE does not care and it is “SE who?” all over again. That is the response I got when I pushed SE to them. “Oh, you mean it works like Spaceclaim?” This comment is the direct reason why I am taking the time to vent here today. It is the answer I got because Spaceclaim cares to get the word out in effective ways and SE is still stuck on Local Motors. This totally makes me mad when I hear stuff like this and it is solely the failure of marketing to get the word out in productive ways. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and over and over and over again and hoping for different results. Whatever sales increases there are with SE should be double or more if marketing would just get it together.
So today in my email box. http://p.spaceclaim.com/meshingDE They are now pushing their product for other things and I bet they will be present in many locations to promote their product. And they will present it in a fashion that demonstrates how and why it will make your day better and save you time and money by it’s use.
I am of the opinion that professional users are the key to everything. If you do not open the market up here you can forget the rest. When the professional users start hopping on board this compels the academic world to follow because job boards do dictate what is sought by students. More professional users are more advocates via word of mouth to other professional users and this also drives sales. Am I going to listen to another user who can sit down and SHOW me how what he uses is better than what I use? You bet I am. Am I going to pay any attention to something like Local Motors? No not really and I perceive it as an offering to hobbiests. That is how it comes across to me and I am looking for serious tools and not clever toys. Hobbiests use toys.
The whole PR department of Solid Edge needs to find things that relate to real target markets and stop the cute cookie cutter stuff that looks slick and that is about as far as it’s depth of appeal goes to professional users. When it is even out there. How in the world can the example of SW over the years and now Spaceclaim not show how to do it?
Of course I am not a marketing guy from the cloistered and hallowed halls of academia so what do I know. Well let me tell you what I do know. When I sat down with a guy who could show me on my own part the power of ST it took me about five minutes to decide I needed this and I have been a customer ever since and intend to be until I retire. This same guy, that’s me by the way with dirt under my fingernails, finds absolutely NOTHING compelling about Local Motors etal. Facts and a demo on your own parts by trained and capable sales guys trumps slick brochures any day. Get some trained feet on the ground and out there in places that count. Dan and Doug took time with Jeff Mowry (http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/?p=8538#comments) the other day and THIS is the kind of stuff that can be promoted and sales will come from. As far as I am concerned there is no telling how many people will read what Jeff does with interest. And I bet Jeff could care less about Local Motors because he is looking for answers to real problems. If it were me one of the things I would do would be to take some of these power users from SW looking to jump ship and GIVE them seats of whatever level of SE they want with the condition that they can be used as stories for SE. Promote this kind of stuff. SE is good right? You are confident in your product right? Put it to the test then with these guys and I believe you will have more new and influential advocates. It’s time to stop being wimpy about all this and start kicking rear ends. I have no idea why Italics started here and I am not going to try and fix it. This is not intentional.I think we should call it the Blue Matter, because I feel blue is the official color for SE.
How to get in contact with it?
Well in my case perfect my English 🙂 that would be a good start.
Anna
Not sure about that very, very, small minority, I suspect the Blue Matter being much, much bigger. Should Siemens PLM put some numbers on the table? they do not have the same business model as SW. So I doubt we will see numbers beside public one like SEu13 attendee
Dave
The spark plug is there ( the community) we only need fuel (evangelist to sign-in) and fresh air (new members to sign-in) to start ignition 🙂 asking questions and show their work.
The best way to contact/connect with the Blue wave is talk to it. It listen more than you can think of. As proof we are here and we talk
Luc,
Dude, I can’t even imagine trying to communicate with the world in a language other than my native language. You get tons of points for being so courageous.
I used “dark matter” because they are the people we can’t see. We know they are there, just like the cosmological dark matter, but we can’t find them. The “blue matter” are the people we can see. We don’t need to find them, we already know where they are.
Matt
From that point of view yes dark will apply I guess I’m due for some vacation, SEU13 will be welcome.
Get their boss convinced his employees should be spending time on participating in the community of people that use the software. Even better make it about what you do with the software and it’s output than the process of using it. It has to be educational not marketing.
This blog makes a great point about why Develope3D live is successful.
http://gfxspeak.com/2013/04/15/develop-3d-live-may-burst-at-the-seams/
HDS,
Good insight. This is part of the combining ideas idea. I’m looking at specifically how to grow a particular community. Maybe aiming at something without looking at it directly is the best method. I think over in England they’ve got a somewhat different situation. Probably a lot of people starved for a local event, and a lot of people across several products means they have to keep it pretty general. Still, it’s an interesting idea.
Getting the boss involved could go either way. It could be seen as drudgery because the boss made you do it. I don’t want to have to coerce people. Obviously, I want people to want to be there.
The key to general event that is people do not see themselves as software users that engineer and design they see themselves as engineers or designers that use software.
Who wants to get excited about something they know is off limits?
HDS,
What exactly is off limits? The internet during work hours?
User group meetings during working hours, travel for larger events. I’ve never seen a boss that put value in those things.
I think in many ways a vibrant users community begins with laying the groundwork to appeal to new users. SW did this and it was successful. When many start to show up even the older and jaded users will regain interest to. In any case it is as Anna says something that will appeal to a small minority of users but even that can be a large group.
The answer is years of sustained coherent effort by any company that wants to see this happen amongst it’s buyers. It can’t be on again and off again. It also requires “spark plug” users and how Solid Edge for example would find and cultivate these individuals I don’t know.
True about the commitment. In the case of SW they have employees specifically devoted to fostering groups and related matters like forums/blogs/cert pro exams and SWW. It just didnt happen in itself. Users of course were already interacting and assisting each other on usenet although with a robust independance/separation from the company in those days. The crossposting and compulsive/obsessive clowns on usenet eventually killed that off as a viable space. Possibly SW are a bit lucky that happened because they wouldnt have been so successful in their own promotions otherwise. I think SW eventually over did their familiarity in replicating/hyjacking user interest for their own promotional reasons but a lot of users were/are happy with the contrivance. The key is to facilitate but not control IMO. People dont like to think they are being used, manipulated or sold something by cunning. It has to tap into a genuine enthusiasm and for want of a better word comradery and build up over time. SE need to get their act together and be effective competitors. Those missed gear changes and the rough running engine mean they are only circulating atm. Its all very well to talk up the potential and have a tidy paint job but its actual consistant results everyone wants to see.
Dave & Neil,
Totally agree that it has to grow naturally and belong to the users. hmmm.
“Personally, I find it hard to imagine working a job that I really want to leave behind me every day. I can’t imagine working a job I don’t love.”
Matt, this might be the largest part why you see limited participation by many. Personally I can’t agree more with your comment above, but we are a rare breed. Most, if not all of my Lawyer and Doctor friends, wouldn’t go into their chosen profession if they had to do it again. The problem lies in when young people make career choice before they’ve had a chance to fully understand what their days will be like when the actually do it for a living. Ask any lawyer who’s simple doing House closings, and common everyday crap how rewarding it is. One of my best friends does Estate planning and he is sick of his rich clients dying and leaving all their money to their children who are nothing more then a bunch of ingrates. Or my doctor who glazes over when we discuss most of his patients and the drudgery of trying to help them when they won’t even help themselves.
Anyway I think there’s a lot of folks who view Designing and Engineering as simply a job. This could be solely on what type of stuff they work on, or it’s just not that exciting to them to want to share after the umpteenth time. So idea of participating or to discuss it with the outside world is just not in their psyche!
Then there’s the other big problem with “social media” in general. I have had many people tell me after meeting me at a live event, that I’m nothing like they expected…. which I’m sure is NOT that I’m 40 lbs. overweight and so good looking, but that my “comments” that I’ve made over the years on the Solid Edge Newsgroup were so caustic and sometimes rude. But in the real world I really don’t think I’m that way…. well except for those 40 lbs.
But these Social Media sites, force people into a different comfort zone. Personally I temper my comments that are open to the WWW and try to be one of SE’s biggest supporters. This is with a great deal of concerted effort that takes a lot of discipline on my part. Why? Well I have no idea who’s reading this stuff and don’t have anyway of letting these “unknowns” understand that I’m not a lunatic or let them misunderstand my comments. So It all boils down to the “level of comfort” one finds themselves at, and this varies greatly based on the venue and the perceived audience.
My point is that “building a community” takes a lot of time, and given Social Media’s inherent fluent nature, I don’t think these things will ever be a true replacement of face to face interactions. I mean on your blog here, I don’t get see anyone’s smile when I say I’m 40 lbs. overweight, or those who know me just smirk…. which means: “Hey Mileti it’s at least 50lbs., so put that freak’n Coffecake Muffin down!”
Bob
Bob, love the comment. Choosing careers is not a decision that should be left to young people. They have no idea what they want to do. I was one of those for sure. I spent 2 years in music school and 4 years in the Navy playing in the band before I figured out that what I really wanted to do was design and build stuff. A parent’s job is tough, because some kids just won’t listen. I had been accepted to both Boston University for mechanical engineering and Ithaca College for music. I chose music without having any idea what the real world was about. Music was and is fun, and so is engineering, but engineering pays the bills, which turned out to be pretty important.
BTW I didn’t mean to imply booth babes should be free or that you should tell jokes about it afterward…though I think people would pay good money for a VAR burning and go home just as happy.
Neil
When U tire of CAD stuff… U should move to Vegas and get a standup comedy gig. U could make $$$millions. 🙂
Free beer, pizza…booth babes…a VAR burning…tell jokes during or after.
How about a mail-in subs rebate for having attended x group meetings (attach a small piece of smoked VAR cap from each to prove you were there).
Self interested ideas – tax break for extending training/ industry awareness, after meeting networking for fostering local enterprise/joint ventures/subcontract opportunities.
Make CAD a doorway to other activity – appeal to national interest, professionalism, God’s calling…
Perhaps garner wider interest and make CAD a sub-section of a larger mechanical/industry get together to raise awareness among those who don’t necessarily have use CAD/CAE or design services presently, or for those who might be coming from a workshop or student background. Might even get some local amateurs to come along and talk about something they invented or whatever and then VARs can show how their tools could be applied… dunno.. be creative, flexible and inclusive 😉
Neil,
Your reference to a VAR burning indicates to me that you have been working with the wrong VARs. Once you step over to the Solid Edge world, you may find that VARS (at least some of us) put a lot of time and effort in to trying to provide excellent support and actually provide Value to the equation.
Please don’t sign the SE VARS up to be burned until you have had some experience with us. Then, if we deserve to be burned, I guess we will step forward or at least offer up a token VAR for the fire.
Kim
http://www.allyplm.com
hehe…VARS are always a bit sensitive to users making sport of them… unfortunately not all VARs are as good as you are 😉
BTW where can I find the price of FEMAP and extra modules? just round figures.. It doesnt seem to be out there on the internet anywhere. Hate that. Hate having to fill out forms to watch webinars and go get quotes and stuff. This is something else that ought to change about CAD marketing. SW doent make this easy either but there are some better VARS out their who are less self interested/protective and more open/helpful for prospective customers and you can obtain basic info onlne. – what it will do, how much it costs etc. all you are really interested to know initially is, is it for me?
Neil,
Those rumors that we are good – we started them all ourselves 🙂
As for pricing, I guess we still want to make it a litter harder for competitors to get the full price list. When working with customers/prospects, we typically talk about that early since we want to make sure the investment makes business sense. For example, we had a discussion with a this company at one point, they were interested in Edge, but the investment just did not make sense: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gold-4-Ya-Mouth/118307128705
As for FEMAP prices —
FEMAP with the NASTRAN Linear solver starts at about $10,000 for a node locked license and under $15,000 for a Floating license. Maintenance would be in addition to this amount. You can also purchase just the Pre/Post Processor without NASTRAN for less…. there are also add on modules depending on more specialized needs.
Most of the add-on modules are Solver items — Thermal, Advanced Thermal, Non-Linear, Super Elements, DMAP, Rotor Dynamics, etc. This usually takes a discussion (with someone more technical than me) to make sure we are getting you the options you need, thus the importance of some discussion. The prices on the add-on modules run from $3,000 – $15, 000.
There are spec sheets on all the FEMAP products on our www site at:http://allyplm.com/femap/
I doubt that Siemens will publish a price list on the www any time soon and probably would not want us to publish it, but we are always happy to provide any assistance we can.
Kim
Ally is one of the good ones Neil. I totally understand the bad VAR thing but don’t put Ally in that boat.
Thanks Dave I will do my own thinking. I was only making a joke about VAR burning. I think most folk took it that way.
Its getting off topic here but for some time there has been a school of thought among SW users that the VAR model is outmoded, being viewed as corporate welfare for compulsary middlemen and in many cases they are not providing any better or faster support than you could get from fellow users via the internet. People are wanting service packs without having to support a constellation of VARs they don’t really have a need for. The VAR thing harkens back to the old days of mainframes or specialist equipment support and secretive pricing deals through a physical dealer chain. Really that stuff ought to have died out about the time Silicon Graphics boxes did. Today you can compare, download trials and buy on line, you have on line manuals, view youtube reviews/tutorials of any product and get online support from a variety of sources. Times have moved on and so should this aspect of CAE. I realise SE marketing is a little further behind the ball than SW or Autodesk and we are unlikely to see immediate changes from SE but SW users were seriously looking to DS for other options before the cloud issue blew up. Paying by the hour for on line CAD wasn’t one of those options however. Sure there are services that make sense on line but…
First things first though. SW refugees are most interested to see now that SE can cover their existing CAD work if they decide to move over. I am aware that SE is probably bound in the same way SW is by having a glass tech ceiling imposed on it from above and the same outmoded marketing model even if some VARs are very dedicated and useful. To be honest that doesn’t comfort me so much. I would suggest there is more SE need to do in the future to get up to marketing speed than getting organised and enthusiastic. If DS and Autodesk pitch an online deal at the least SE are going to look at a hybrid or modernised approach or have their whole business look somewhat like yesterdays tired leftovers by default.
Neil,
About the VAR thing. Of course the burning thing was a joke, I get that. However bad VAR’s are not and they do exist and I have had experience with some of them so when you talk about a VAR roast it does bring bad VAR memories to mind for many users. Don’t understand where I am thinking for you and if you don’t want a recommendation from a user who has been well treated by a VAR he can recommend without reservation that’s fine with me.
I will completely agree with the lousy marketing of SE and it is my hope that this too will change with the launch of ST6. I really don’t think this is going to be just another version update for SE but rather that all the important pieces of the puzzle will now be in place for the software and I sincerely hope that includes a different way of interacting with prospective customers and improving it with existing ones. I am of the mindset that this release in June will be what ends all objections to the capabilities of SE and from what I am seeing and hearing behind the scenes there will be profound changes for the good in all areas. If better marketing is not on the short list I will not only be very surprised but quite disappointed to. The marketing department with SE has just got to get it’s act together this time or SE will never have the market share it’s capabilities deserve.
Guys,
Just to be clear, I did take the VAR brining comment as a joke….
As for SE marketing, I am well aware that SE is behind SolidWorks in terms of name recognition. I could probably write a thesis as to why I think this is the case since I have been involved with Edge since before it was released. However, does anyone have suggestions on how we might improve this situation? If this was easy, the SPLM marketing folks would have done it some time ago. Give it some thought. I would love to hear specifics regarding how you are influenced in product decisions such as Solid Edge vs SolidWorks or Inventor, etc. Once you think about that, think about what Siemens could do to break through the barrier to get more mindshare in the market. Then, think about what a local VAR could to break through this barrier in their local market.
Post some specific ideas here and we might be able to use them to improve the market penetration of Edge.
We all believe SE Marketing could be improved, but help us understand how we could do that short of setting VARS on fire on every street corner (that is a joke).
Kim
Kim,Well if you read here and over there 😉 you ought to be picking up clues.
A company is interested in market share, profits, growth, coders are into technical issues etc whereas a user is interested practical matters. SW has made it easy to be a user. They approach their business from a users perspective or they used to before DS stepped in to assume to farm us.
IMO SW is almost too easy or dumbed down in that they tend to under do the technical side in the UI and help. Its become more about style than substance and for that we can blame the over influence of marketing. Its too polished and blended by multiple committees. Lately of course we have seen a conspicuous decline in even the technical aspect but that’s largely down to the misdirected attention of the cloud endeavour.
My impression of SE is that they overdo the technical side. Its a technical program I know but its like reading Machinery Handbook. Interesting, useful, but the detail and presentation hurts by brain after a while. It isnt any fun. The company web presentation is of a similar nature really. Its seriously technical and thats good but its also not so audience friendly. The SW comic book however is annoying if you actually want to know something technical, particularly when they cant be bothered with an the index but then give you a search engine to play that can’t find stuff because it doesn’t exist.
I don’t have much experience of Inventor but my impression is that Autodesk are doing a good job of blending the ingredients in their products. Where they fall down and fail miserably to gain me as a customer is the over driven commercial focus of their business. They come across as voracious leeches.
Take a look at any of their EULA and the repulsive legalese. Its no wonder you cant find commas in my posts because Autodesk have used them all. These bastards want all your money once they have you signed up and take no responsibility for anything they make, now, in the future, or might have in the past, or in any parallel universes that might exist.
OK enough for today. 😉
My experience with VARs is not very good. It took Weeks for me to get a partial SE quote. They finally responded to pressure from the Dezignstuff forum. Catia took almost 4 weeks to get back with pricing. The root of the problem is price fixing, they pretend to quote some special combination for you so that they do not get caught selling the same product to similar customers at different prices.
The user community is much better technical support than a VAR. SW keeps much of the product training materials in the hands of VARs and does a sucko job on the documentation. Fortunately this material makes its way to EBay.
SE makes me suspicious by having no non customer access to their forums.
Rick, your experience with VARS does not seem good. My company is a VAR with HQ in Ohio that services and supports customer in most of the eastern US. Most of our quotes go out in hours, not days or weeks. I felt bad yesterday because someone asked me (via e-mail) for a quote in morning and I did not get it to him until almost 5 PM – about 6-7 hours later. This length of time is not typical. We would not be in business if it took us weeks to generate a quote.
If it took me weeks to get a quote on anything, I would be looking for someone else to work with.
I cannot speak for the SW channel, but we have training material that is part of our training business that we don’t provide at no cost. However, we do publish a significant amount of material in video form on our www site at no cost — http://solidedgevideos.blogspot.com/
IMO there are times where you can get good technical assistance from the user community, but I also believe that there is significant value in the support we provide via live discussions, screen sharing, etc. Based on the amount of live support we provide, I think many of our customers agree.
Again, just my opinion, but I believe there are people that would rather pick up the phone and ask a live human a question than dig through forums, youtube, etc. I may be a dinosaur, but I am one of them. I also believe there are people (the person who sets in the office next to me is one) who would much rather search forums, google, youtube, etc. before they would ever pick up the phone.
I guess our goal should be to ensure that both these approaches to getting support and information are easy to access.
As for the SE Forums, I am not sure what there is to be suspicious of – they are open to Solid Edge customers and I have yet to see any conspiracy launched there 🙂
VARS are not perfect, but they don’t all deserve to be burned 🙂
Kim
Rick,
You might be interested in the new Solid Edge Community recently started by the Solid Edge team at Siemens: http://allyplm-solutions.blogspot.com/2013/05/siemens-plm-launches-public-online.html
kim
A VAR burning… geez, what are you trying to do to me? ;0)
I like some of the ideas about combining things. Maybe an ASME meeting with CAD. I went to a plastics society meeting one time as a part of a CAD group.
You will never reach them. We are in a very, very, small minority. The rest really, truly are just not interested.
FWIW,
Anna
Anna, can you expand that answer at all? It sounds like you’ve got a story or a series of experiences to go with it.
Hi Matt,
This seems to be a common trend alright.
In a similar fashion, I’ve heard nothing back from a single participant, that said they’d support some sort of communication method, following the user group meeting at the end of last year. It’s difficult to find that ONE good method that works, for everybody.
And you have the benifit of a much larger population. We just have to take a BIG breath, and keep trying.