Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Your Regularly Scheduled Programming Will Not Be Seen Tonight...

I was informed today by ADSK that my proposed sessions should not be a part of AU 2009 and someone else should manage Building Design Power Track. This is fully understood considering my strong personal opinions regarding Revit development and the 2010 UI. But it is really unfortunate considering my elegant work-around for rail joins. ;)

Autodesk has the extraordinary good fortune of having a passionate, articulate and dedicated customer base. I believe their customers yearn to buy software from a company that understands, appreciates and responds to their customer's investment. But for any company to remain successful, they must strenuously maintain balance between the sharp minds of deep thinking subject matter experts and the sharp elbows of politically savvy corporate bureaucrats. And if present management can not maintain this balance then it will likely be a priority of the next to restore it.

Between Revit Technology and Autodesk, I spent the better part of 7+ years convincing, training and mentoring people and teams to move away from a well-established, but tired, dead end of a process. I am very patient to a point. But I do not claim to have the time or patience to slowly stir Autodesk into action. Not when planning new functionality requires a 2 year lead time. Not when the last year was spent developing a new UI that many reasoned opinions believe is functionally inferior. The architectural community have invested too long and too much to see the unique (and I believe even historic) opportunity that is Revit be squandered through corporate lethargy.

I am at my deepest core an Agent of Change. It served Revit well. It served Autodesk well. I sincerely hope that it has served the Architectural Community well. I do not portend to be a reasonable man.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-George Bernard Shaw

8 comments:

Revit Implementation said...

Do you think now would be a bad time to ask them to make Revit work with Apple OS

:)

Why don't you host a renegade online session for rail joins.
Start the RRUG....Renegade Revit User Group
Cheers
Mike

Anonymous said...

I've said it here:

http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/2009/05/phil-the-ribbon-cuts.html

Nicholas Iyadurai said...

Your class proposals are still at au online and I have voted for them. If autodesk has already decided on classes why are they wasting our time asking us to vote for classes???
I still hope that they would include your proposals!!!!

Anonymous said...

I highly recommend reading John Siracusa's article over at Ars Technica Hypercritical
.

Unknown said...

What the hell is happening over at Autodesk? Has the global downturn messed with their heads? Did you piss in their coffee before you parted company? I'm disappointed that they don't want to include your class in the power track. Without sounding like I'm blowing wind up your arse, but it was Sarah Capes who introduced you to me at Euro Disney around 4 years ago and it to some extent it has been your passion "as an agent for change" which has inspired me and the passion you have, I certainly believe has inspired many other users as well. I would guess your criticism of the UI has touched a nerve and if it has, then it proves that they have got it wrong. I have a love hate relationship with the UI, I like the idea, but the implementation is poor. All the blog posts in the world from the Autodesk marketing engine is not going to convince a far more techno aware user base, like you’ve said before, don’t bite the hand that feeds you. :-)

Martin Taurer said...

I do fully agree with your comments - sad but not surprising to see how a corporate like Autodesk so elegantly managed to dilute the essence of what Revit means in favor of marketable slogans like 'The Ribbon' or the "New Conceptual Modeler".
Nome of both make my working life with Revit significantly better... yes the previous UI was like Outlook Express from 1995, but what we get now is glitzy but yet less practical.
The new conceptual modeler is a great geek exercise to stand against Generative Components (in my humble opinion) - great to have, but as said above, since most money I make in Revit is with rather rectangular pieces of (good ) architecture, it does not attribute to the quality of my working like at all.
And, just to mention host joins, there'd have been a lot to do...
2010 fells like being force fed with something I need to stick with since I have no better idea of what to use instead. The enthusiasm for the software is gone, the enthusiasm for the idea (and I rest assure that is the same with you ) is still there...

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.