The CAD Insider

CAD Insider Gets Noticed

With the ratio of blogger to CAD user nearing 1:1, it's no wonder someone offers a service that ranks blogs. I got wind of one such service (blogged.com) when they sent me an award for CAD Insider and an 8.4 rating. That means "great" according to their rating system. Whew! I'm glad I had a few recent posts up, as that is one of their criteria.

Their criteria also includes "relevance of content, site design, and writing style." The judges are not named on the site but site claims "strong domain knowledge." CAD Insider was listed among technology blogs and there are about 10 pages of tech blogs with better ratings. I would have thought engineering would be better. I don't really expect CAD to exist as a category when it caters to the entire universe of subjects.

A search on "CAD" did yield a few other CAD blogs (SolidWorks Community got the highst rating with 8.9, Jeff's Blog, also about SolidWorks, was 2nd. I recognized BLAUGI (by the Autodesk international user group, 8.0 and Mistress of Dorkness, about AutoCAD, with 7.8. WorldCAD Access is listed, as are several other CAD blogs, but not rated.

Anyway, thanks to Blogged.com. It's always nice to get a good review. However, there's a whole lotta CAD blogs better than this one, so I hope their authors read this and submit their sites to this service.

What Happened to Head to Head Reviews?

With all that bloggers are doing, what is left for the traditional press? By their numbers, voraciousness and speed, bloggers seemed to have nailed event coverage. It wasn't even a contest. Ditto, tips and tricks -- the press just cannot compete with hard core users -- which most bloggers are. What about tutorials? Once the realm of CAD print magazines and CAD books, I'm seeing an increasing number of good or good-enough tutorials on blogs. In fact, a recent series of tutorials by Orhan Toker on sectioning of AutoCAD solid models may have saved a recent project!

Hey, what about product reviews? Sure, bloggers may post their impressions of a new release and though it may be technically classified a review, in most cases they fall short of  those 5,000 word, comprehensive reviews that were the pride and joy back in the glory days of the trade press. Most blogger 'reviews' end up being short, pithy vignettes, but still one could argue that the collective work of the blogging community reviewing a single product (as happens with AutoCAD releases) more than compensates for the massive reviews of old.

Though trade press may have lost ground in the above types of coverage, one way it could still shine would be to do comparative reviews: looking at rival products that help users make a buying decision. Comparative reviews, aka head-to-heads, are done for other areas, notably software, digital cameras, etc. The traditional press editors seem ideally situated to do this. Most magazine editors are showered with CAD software products and end up with shelves full of them. How about comparing them and helping out the befuddled user who is trying to graduate from 2D and needs to know the best 3D CAD product, for example?

Why are well done head-to-head product comparisons so rare in our industry? Only Cadalyst still does them. Still, I don't recall a comparative review between Pro/E or CATIA, Revit or ArchiCAD. Too big of a project? I don't think so-- there's typically only a handful of major players in any vertical market. Not enough interest? Hardly! MCAD and BIM are hot subjects. Too complicated to pick a winner in something so complicated as a CAD program? Well, I have heard that a lot. Yet, we (as a society) don't have any trouble picking out the best movie, best restaurant, best breed of a dog, Time magazine even picks the Person of the Year.

Care to guess what the real reason you don't see more head to head reviews?

Blogger Speaks the Unspeakable

Mike Puckett has done the unspeakable: he has taken on a CAD CEO.

Who is Mike Puckett? To call Mike a SolidWorks user is to not do him justice. Super user? Champion? Avenger? All those that disrespect SolidWorks had better hope they don't run into Mike. It's not like Mike is a scary fellow. He's actually a nice guy who I had the pleasure of meeting at SolidWorks World. But I hadn't dissed SolidWorks (lately) so I was not in Mike's sights. Not so lucky was an Autodesk representative who ended up answering to Autodesk's in-your-face anti-SolidWorks tactics of years past.

Mike's latest victim in Greg Milliken, CEO of Alibre, who aroused Mike's ire by first distributing anti-SolidWorks popcorn (?) at a trade show, and then (according to Mike's blog) impugning SolidWorks to Mikes face -- before Mike ripped off his civilian clothes and showed his SuperSolidWorks User uniform underneath. Mike documents Greg's transgressions here, so I don't need to repeat them. In response, Greg calls Mike a liar.

Yeah, it's a bit of a sh**storm. Our little private editors club is abuzz about it. Pro-Mike and pro-Greg factions are forming. I expect a lot more posts and emails. Much of it is about whether Mike was telling the truth. There's also: should we trust Mike? He hasn't been sworn in as a journalist. He doesn't know to corroborate the story. He doesn't worry about the newsworthiness of it. Is he crazy, taking on a CEO? Doesn't he worry about getting sued?

Mike doesn't have to worry about Greg pulling his advertising, either. Pure bloggers don't do advertising, so no worry about advertising pressure -- the secret and unstated fear of us all in the trade press.

Oh, to be freed from all those restraints! Maybe then we journalists could soar, seek the truth, go where the story goes, say the emperor has no clothes, dare to be controversial... Oh, wait -- that's the bloggers's world.

Mike operates without fear, a David among Goliaths, one user with a blog against all the guys in suits. He might not have learned to play the game, or know the give and take that we often taken for granted in trade press. He believes in the righteousness of his cause: the cause of the user. He may have underestimated the power of his written word and the size of his following. A few more posts like this and he may get beaten down by the wrath of CEO's and VPs, or field their veiled threats about lawsuits. His increased visibility may make him the target of the  perpetual positive spin of PR staffers. Or he may succumb to VIP treatment vendors lavish on their favorite media people, the travel and gifts, and learn there is more to gain by playing along than warring against.

I hope not. Whatever we may think of Mike's story, right or wrong, we are all tuned in. This is about as exciting as it gets in our world.